The AR-15 blessing in Pennsylvania

Hundreds of couples toting AR-15 rifles packed a Unification church in Pennsylvania on Wednesday to have their marriages blessed and their weapons celebrated as “rods of iron” that could have saved lives in a recent Florida school shooting.

Women dressed in white and men in dark suits gripped the guns, which they had been urged to bring unloaded to the church in the rural Pocono Mountains, about 100 miles (160 km) north of Philadelphia. Many celebrants wore crowns – some made of bullets – while church officials dressed in flowing bright pink and white garments to go with their armaments.

Reverend Hyung Jin “Sean” Moon, leader of the church after the death of his father and church founder, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, blessed the roughly 250 couples at the service, a church spokesman said.

Students in a nearby school were “relocated” for the day. The ceremony went off without a hitch—or rather, without a death.

Here is a video and some photos of the ceremony, conducted at the Sanctuary Church (a Moonie church) in Newfoundland, Pennsylvania. I can’t think of a better documentation of two forms of lunacy that dominate America: love of God and love of guns.

Why does that older woman in front need an assault rifle? And why are they wearing crowns?

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Indeed. Only the political process can save us from those whom the inexorable flow of Enlightenment values seems to have missed. The cultural divide in the United States is a chasm and the ballot box is the means by which its future will be determined, not only for traditional issues such as economic ones, but by the nature of how life will be lived. The religious right, and its overlapping allies such as the NRA, is far from from finished in this country and as its numbers wane becomes more ruthless in attempting to maintain political power.

I think you have too much confidence in our political process. IMO, change will not come through legislation. Our culture needs to change. When this kind of gun lunacy is seen by Americans as the lunacy it is, as well as being a serious character flaw, then congress may follow. That’s not going to come easily or any time soon.

They found the number of reportable injuries to firearms fell significantly during NRA conventions;

…it is often contended that injuries primarily occur in the hands of inexperienced users and that experience and training alone can eliminate or markedly reduce firearm safety concerns. The purpose and motivation of this study was to investigate this possibility using a unique natural experiment, the NRA annual meeting. We hypothesized that firearm users who attend these meetings would be less likely to use firearms during the period of meeting attendance compared to identical days in the weeks before or after these meetings and that, as a result, population rates of firearm injuries might decline due to the brief period of firearm abstinence even among presumably avid, skilled users.

A few interesting things out of the data (found in supplementary data table S3) was this difference was noted only among men (not surprising) and only among men from the South and the West.

I remember learning about the Nazis as a kid in school and being told it could happen again, that people today were capable of those atrocities (that we all were!), and I found that very hard to believe.

It’s so easy to believe now. What’s hard to believe now is that it won’t happen anymore.

Read an article on these loons that said they were having marriage ceremonies with the guns as well. Something in the bible about protecting with the Rod. Little did we know that rod means AR-15. Funny how these biblical babbles work out in modern times. Apparently these folks won’t be shopping at Dick’s Sporting Goods.

At high field strengths, weird things happen. Even water gets magnetic eventually (something to do with the unpaired electrons on the oxygen? It’s a long time since I had to do physical chemistry.) Aluminium being a trivalent metal, I wouldn’t be surprised if it contained a little ferric iron, and then all bets are off.

Yes, and that same trick also works for strawberries, tomatoes, etc. The reason why we don’t see frogs, etc. levitating all over the place is that the Earth’s magnetic field strength is about 65 or less microteslas while that levitation field was 10 teslas (at least 150,000 times stronger). It is currently not possible to make a magnetic field strong enough to levitate a human (infant or adult). At above about 100 teslas a copper coil self destructs because the copper is not physically strong enough to resist the magnetic repulsion.

Both aluminum and copper are nonferrous but they definitely respond to varying magnetic fields. Every AC induction motor made demonstrates this on a daily basis. MRIs use both strong DC magnetic fields and varying magnetic fields. The former has no effect on aluminum or copper, as long as the metal is not moving and the field is constant, while the latter does have an effect even with stationary metal.

To be sure to have killed the Parkland shooter (I never mention his name) they would have had to shoot him from behind. So all the kids in the Parkland shooter’s sights would be hit by bullets from their precious AR 15s too. Because of the angle being further away, they would probably hit even more people than the killer did.

Kinda looks like a weird dream/nightmare. Makes me wonder if those in charge keep adding little extras (like the crowns) just to see how far they can push it before someone says “Nipple clamps? You’ve got to be kidding Pastor?”

Most humans seem to naturally feel a desire to be important, to live a life of significance, and if they don’t achieve it the right way — with hard work, education, and infused with a deep understanding of ethics and the scientific method — they’ll grasp onto whatever nuttiness comes their way. It’s not just the people standing there with their AR-15s, it’s the look in their eyes that says: “I am a weapon in the hands of God. Fear God, and me, of course.”

A neologistic word for members of religious cults: automatonamous. In this case, with the Moonies, it’s not just the guns. Look at the ceremonial dress-up clothes (I especially noticed the white-glove treatment of the AR-15s)and the solemn demeanor of the men dressed in black and women in white. I have to infer that in surrendering selfhood they believe they’ve found it.

Where I reside we have the Jehovah’s Witnesses who come in every year for a big conclave to do whatever it is they do. Same cultish behavior on the streets (no ‘outsider’ sees them in the rented auditorium): patriarchs marching toward Zion–which I think they believe is located in the constellation of the Pleiades–and trailing behind the wife and (often) many children of the paterfamilias. Each carries a sack lunch, since they won’t patronize any of the restaurants downtown, or for that matter have anything to do with us gentiles.

I hope these images are seen by everyone in America, especially those who own guns and those who are religious. These images are not only embarrassing to gun owners they can shame believers into not wanting any part of this craziness. A craziness they can no longer deny being a small part.

Religion doesn’t get to put it’s ‘crazy’ on the mantle of science and the religious don’t get to ignore the ‘crazy’ of their brethren.

I love the lady wearing a surgical mask in the ceremony. If her god is not only powerful but also willing do her bidding in blessing those guns, why not ask him to get rid of infectious disease instead?

Considering that every mask-wearing idiot I’ve seen in an airport (I can’t recall seeing one on the bare streets) has left gaping gaps round the side of the mask, rendering them useless, I doubt there would be much effectiveness left at all.
I wonder how long they use them for, and what their bacterial load is, after the moist incubation.

My own place of worship, the Holy Thompson Unification Church, is based on an image of Jesus Christ holding a submachine gun. Our sacraments hold that Jesus did not roll the rock away from his burial tomb, but rather blew it up with a charge of C4. After that, He and his enforcer Saul of Tarsus went about making converts with the aid of a Tommy gun, leading to the gunpoint convertion of the Emperor Constantine. In our version of the Eucharist, the bread and wine are mystically converted into .45 ACP cartridges.

I have to admit, as the above reveals, that the Pennsylvania moonies do make things almost impossible for satire.

It was just reported the Putin has invited the Moonies to Russia to bless his new nukes. They were shopping Priceline for tickets when they learned he’s unwilling to wear a crown during the cerimony. The whole thing is off.

“Why does that older woman in front need an assault rifle?
I point the finger at Daisy May Moses, Jed Clampett’s ma in law, Granny.
I can still see her running around the mansion wielding a shotgun. That i found funny, but this is ridiculous and a little … insane.

Religion is alive and active here in Ky. Kim Davis , the county court clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to gays and lesbians has written a book about that experience called “Under God’s Authority.” It is being promoted by governor of the state Matt Bevins. Also the Ark Park andCreation Museum are lowering their prices for children. Jerry ..why don’t you open a Why Evolution Is True museum across the road?

Am I missing something? The school was relocated for the day, why? Surely there was no danger from those AR15s? Aren’t the congregation going to go home and still possess the firearms? Wouldn’t the school therefore need to stay relocated?